When No One Cares Enough to Look
by Vol lady
Summary: Nick and Heath rescue Jarrod from a man who abducted him, believing Jarrod had his wife hidden from him, but they are forced to kill the man before anyone knows who he was. Fearing that the man's wife could also have been abducted but not knowing who she is either, Jarrod begins a search with virtually no information.
1. Chapter 1

When No One Cares Enough to Look

Chapter 1

He woke up with someone having grabbed him by the hair and pulled him upright. It took a moment to focus, but then the pain and the remembered fear made his vision clear up. He saw the man leering at him. He had no idea who this man was.

The man said, "Wake up, Barkley. Time to start talking."

"About what?" he mumbled. The man seemed to be coming out of deep water. He didn't understand.

"You know what I want to know," the man growled like an animal. "Where do you have her stashed?"

He couldn't catch his breath right away. The man yanked him by the hair again. "Who?" he asked.

"My wife!" the man yelled into his face.

He squeezed his eyes closed, panting, unable to breathe. "I don't know who you mean. Who's your wife?"

The man gave him a hard slap across the face. Oddly, it hurt his left eye more than anything, and then he realized he couldn't see out of that eye. It was already injured and swollen. He didn't remember it being injured. He didn't remember anything.

And then he realized his shirt was gone, and his back and chest burned, and his wrists were tied with his arms pulled up over his head. His shoulders hurt like crazy, and the rope was burning his wrists something fierce.

"I don't know what you want," he barely got out, and everything began to hurt.

The man hit him hard, this time with a fist, against his mouth and nose. Blood began to ooze, and it wasn't the first time, he remembered that. He began to remember a lot of things.

When he remembered, he began to black out. The man hit him again, jolting him awake, but then he began to fade again. He didn't want to be awake. He didn't want to remember. The world began to blessedly go black.

"NO!" he yelled himself awake, and immediately felt hands holding him down on the hard ground. He was completely panicked, and he didn't know why. He didn't know where he was or how he got here. He wanted to get up and run away, but the hands held him down.

"Easy, Pappy," a voice said calmly, quietly.

Jarrod woke up, opening his eyes, seeing his brother in the soft morning light. Nick relaxed his grip once Jarrod began to make sense of his surroundings. They were camped. He was asleep on the ground with his head and upper body resting in the underside of his saddle. Heath was tending coffee and breakfast at the fire. Jarrod could smell it.

Jarrod groaned. "Oh, God, what a dream. I was tied up, I was beaten up – I'd been bullwhipped on my back and my chest and I swear, my eye was swollen shut and I couldn't see anything except this stranger tormenting me about his wife, and I didn't know what he was talking about."

Nick sighed. "Jarrod, it wasn't a dream."

Startled, Jarrod looked at him – and realized he couldn't see him very well. Only his right eye would open. And then his chest and back began to hurt like fire and he tried to sit up.

Nick supported him as best he could without touching his back. Jarrod's shirt had dried against the welts on his back and his chest – Nick tried to keep him from peeling the shirt away.

"Take it easy, Pappy, don't pull on your shirt or you'll start bleeding again."

Jarrod began to remember. Nick was right – it wasn't a dream. His brothers had rescued him from a man who had been holding him captive and torturing him, wanting information about his wife when Jarrod had no idea what he was talking about. Jarrod could see now that Nick's face was marred up pretty good, and by the campfire Heath looked pretty bruised up himself. Jarrod couldn't remember being rescued, only tortured. He moaned, tried to lie back. Nick eased him into the saddle, trying not to hurt his back, but as soon as he was down, Jarrod tried to turn and rest his body against some part of it that didn't hurt. His left side worked best.

"What happened?" he asked. His mouth hurt and his tongue was getting in the way of his words.

"You've been torn up pretty bad," Nick said. "Heath and I found you and got you out, but we had to kill the guy who took you, and we don't know who he was."

"I don't know either," Jarrod said. "He wanted to know where I had his wife, but I don't know who she is and I don't have anybody's wife anywhere."

Heath brought a cup of coffee over. "Come on, Jarrod, you haven't eaten in days and you need to get something into you, even if it's just some coffee and bread."

Nick lifted him to sitting again, and Heath held the cup of coffee to Jarrod's mouth. He took a sip. It was hot and he grimaced.

"Everything's a bundle of – craziness," Jarrod said, pushing the coffee away as he struggled to be more upright. "I don't remember being taken. I was just there, and everything there is just memories coming in and out of me."

"You were out cold when we found you," Heath said. "Up until now, you've barely been awake. Nick and I have been taking turns holding you in the saddle."

"Where are we? How far are we from home?" Jarrod asked, struggling to get it out. His mouth and his tongue hurt and felt thick.

"We'll be to Stockton in a couple hours," Nick said. "It was near dark when we found you last night, so we didn't get very far after we got you out. You seemed okay enough for us to stop, so we played it safe and camped for the night. We're taking you to Doc Merar first today."

"No, take me home," Jarrod said.

"No," Nick said, "it's the doc's and talking to the sheriff first for you. The left side of your face is like raw beef, your chest and your back and arms have been bullwhipped, and your wrists are rope burned. Lucky you still have all your teeth, but you still got a lot of parts to fix up."

"No wonder I hurt all over," Jarrod moaned and lay back on his left side again.

"I'm gonna get you a little bread, Jarrod," Heath said. "You gotta eat it."

"No," Jarrod shook his head. "I'll eat later. Put me in a saddle and I won't keep much down if I eat."

"We'll just keep you sipping water, then," Nick said. "At least you've been able to do that and keep it down even if you aren't very awake in the saddle."

Jarrod opened his eye and looked at his brothers again. He reached a hand for whatever it would land on. It found Heath's hand, and Heath held on tight to him. "Thanks for coming to get me. I see it wasn't too easy to pull off."

Nick and Heath looked at each other. "Whoever that guy was, he was madder than hell at you," Nick said, "and he took it out on us as best he could. But we only had a minute with him. He had you for nearly a week."

Jarrod flew upright. "A week?!"

Nick held onto him by the shoulders. "Yeah, Pappy, a week. Took us that long to find you. I'm sorry."

"How did you find me?" Jarrod asked.

"We'd been looking for three or four days," Heath said. "Then your horse came home with a loose shoe. We back tracked him."

Jarrod lay back down again, closing his eyes. He began to realize his beard was heavy and his clothes were filthy, and he smelled as filthy as he was. Everything that was part of him seemed to be burning up. He said, "I can't even remember a week going by."

"Maybe that's a good thing," Heath said quietly.

XXXXXX

Shortly before ten they got him into town, in the saddle in front of Nick and passed out again. People immediately starting staring, talking, watching as Nick eased him down into Heath's waiting arms. The movement seemed to make him wake up a bit, and he got his legs under him. Nick tethered the horses as Heath helped Jarrod into the doctor's office.

Dr. Merar immediately directed them to the examination room. They got him sitting on the table, where the doctor began to peal the shirt off of him. Jarrod groaned and cried out as it came off, sticking to the welts.

"Does any of this go below the waist?" the doctor asked.

"No," Heath said as Nick came in. "Just upper body."

"Let's tend that first, then, and I'll double check later about everything else when we get him out of the rest of these filthy clothes. We're gonna have to burn them. Jarrod? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Jarrod said, thickly through his damaged mouth.

"I want you to stay upright while I tend your back, then we'll lie you flat while I see to your arms and chest and face."

"All right," Jarrod said.

Heath held his brother upright and Dr. Merar went for his supplies, saying quietly to Nick, "What in the devil happened to him?"

Nick shook his head. "Tortured, for almost a week."

Dr. Merar closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself to treat the injuries a week of torture had inflicted, his anger growing at whoever had done this. "I can already see infection has set in."

"I thought he was feeling warm," Nick said. "You think we'll be able to take him home today?"

Dr. Merar shook his head. "You'd better leave him with me, at least overnight. I'd go send somebody for your mother and sister if I were you."

Nick nodded and went out. He went toward the sheriff's office as fast as he could, but he met the sheriff and his deputy coming toward him before he got to the end of the block.

"What's going on, Nick?" Sheriff Madden asked. "Somebody said you found Jarrod."

Nick nodded. The memory came to him again, having Jarrod collapse into his arms as Heath cut him down, trying to keep hold of him but not hurt him any more than he was already hurt while they put some alcohol on his wounds. Even though all Nick wanted to do was hold him, hold him and protect him and make this whole week of hell just go away. "Yeah, but he's broken up pretty bad. The doc's got him now. Can you send somebody out to the ranch to get my mother and sister?"

"Go," the sheriff said to his deputy, and the deputy left.

Nick turned around and led the sheriff to the doctor's office. "Where did you find him?" Sheriff Madden asked.

"Cabin up in the hills, east of here," Nick said. "One man had him tied up and bullwhipped and beaten, but I didn't know the guy. Heath and I had to kill him. He just kept trying to get Jarrod to tell him where his wife was, but Jarrod didn't know him either, didn't know what he was talking about."

"What did you do with the man?"

"Left him. If the animals get him, I don't care."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Nick and Sheriff Madden went into the doctor's office and straight to the examining room. Heath was still holding Jarrod upright and the doctor was still cleaning the welts, but Jarrod was slumped and out cold.

"Things got to be too much for him," Heath said, and his eyes said he'd like to get his hands on the man who did this to his oldest brother, one more time.

"I'll need to talk to him soon as I can, Doc," Sheriff Madden said.

The doctor said, "Give me a couple hours with him and I'll let you know, but don't count on it. Not today."

The sheriff nodded, eyed Jarrod once more, then shook his head and left.

Wordlessly, Nick took over for Heath in holding Jarrod upright. It was a good twenty minutes later before the doctor finished cleaning, treating and bandaging his back. At that point, they were able to lay Jarrod on his back and get the rest of his clothes off. The doctor began to tend to the rest of him.

Nick and Heath stepped back. The doctor said, "Why don't you two wait outside? This is going to take me a while. He looks like a coyote chewed him up."

"Can we help at all?" Nick asked.

"Take his clothes out back to my burn barrel. I'll burn them up later. Then just go out to the waiting area and sit down. I'll call if I need you."

Nick and Heath looked at their brother, lying there torn up and dirty and looking he'd been as brutally treated as he had been. He was barely skin and bone, at least ten pounds lighter than he was before. It hurt just to see him, and it angered them even further, but they went out, leaving the door slightly ajar, and carried his dirty clothes to the burn barrel out back. Then they cleaned up at the pump, came back in and sat down in the waiting area. They were quiet all that time before Nick asked, "You hungry?"

"No," Heath said.

"Me, neither," Nick said. He took a deep breath and sat up more straight. "We gotta find out who this guy was."

Heath nodded, remembering the man's face, remembering even as he killed him that he didn't know why this man had held and tortured Jarrod. "But we don't even know where to start."

"The sheriff's wanted posters, maybe," Nick said with a shrug.

Heath nodded again. "Me or you?"

Nick looked at Heath's face. He sported some bruises, but his eyes were clear. Nick wasn't sure about his own left eye.

But then Heath looked at him and started to get up. "Me. You got a nasty bruise by your eye and I think I'm seeing better."

Nick nodded as Heath went out and said, "I'll come get you if I need you."

"I'll bring some coffee and sandwiches when I come back – we really ought to eat, whether we want to or not," Heath said and went out.

Heath wasn't far down the street when he passed the newspaper office. The editor came running out and buttonholed him. "Heath!"

Heath stopped.

"What's happened?"

Heath said, "Somebody snatched Jarrod about a week ago, beat him up pretty bad. Nick and I found him last night. He's at the doc's now. Not much more to tell."

"Oh, my God," the editor said. "Who did it? Is he gonna be all right?"

Heath sighed. "Don't know the answer to either one," he admitted. "We'll know more after the doc has had some time with him, but I don't know how we're ever gonna find out who the guy who had him was."

"Was? He's dead?"

Heath nodded. "He had at Nick and me pretty bad, too. We didn't want to but we ended up killing him. We wanted to find out why he did this to Jarrod, but we couldn't do it."

"You let me know how Jarrod does, and when you find out who did this, you let me know that too, okay?"

Heath nodded and went on then, not wanting to say much of anything else before talking to the sheriff. He wasn't sure what any of this was going to look like in the newspaper.

The sheriff looked up at Heath as he came in, alarmed. Heath immediately put a hand up. "There's nothing more to tell. I just came to look at your wanted posters to see if the man who held Jarrod is on any of them."

Sheriff Madden nodded, took a pile of posters out of his desk and gave them to Heath. "The current ones are up on the board. These are all old ones, but he still might be on one of them."

Heath nodded, sat down and started thumbing through the posters. "Fred, has anybody reported a woman missing? Any woman at all?"

Sheriff Madden shook his head. "No, nobody. I'm gonna wire some of the surrounding sheriffs, see if anybody knows anything about a missing woman."

"Thanks. We appreciate that. I think once he gets his senses back, Jarrod's gonna start worrying about whoever that woman is. That's his way."

"I don't know, Heath. I've seen men who've gone through something like Jarrod has. It takes them a while to come back to themselves, if they ever come back."

Heath looked up. He knew getting Jarrod back to health – physical and mental – was going to be tough going, but he knew Jarrod would get there. "He'll come back, and he'll start worrying even before he does. You know how he is."

"Yeah," the sheriff said.

Heath kept looking, but none of the pictures on the posters matched the man he and Nick had killed. He gave the posters back to the sheriff, then looked closely at the posters up on the board. The man wasn't there either.

Still looking at the pictures, Heath said, "I wonder why this guy fixed on Jarrod."

"I guess we better ask Jarrod about that, when he's able to talk," the sheriff said. "Maybe this guy's wife was some client of his and Jarrod just hasn't put things together yet."

"Maybe," Heath said. Then he turned around. "Do me a favor, Fred. If you get any new posters, let me have a look at them. Maybe this guy will turn up yet."

"Sure thing, Heath. You let me know when the doc says I can talk to Jarrod."

Heath nodded as he went out the door. Next he stopped at the café for a couple sandwiches and a pot of coffee. The waitress who got the food together for him said, "I saw you bring your brother in. I hope he's not as bad off as he looked."

"Don't know yet," Heath said.

"Oh, Heath, Jarrod comes in here all the time. He's a good man. I can't imagine why anybody would do this to him." She started to tear up.

Heath smiled a little, to help her out. "We'll find out what it's all about, don't worry. Jarrod will get better fast. He's a pretty hardy man."

"I hope so. I really do, Heath."

Heath couldn't resist – he gave her a peck on the cheek. "Don't you worry. He'll be back over here before you know it."

Heath took the coffee and sandwiches over to the doctor's office, where he found Nick still sitting in the waiting room. Heath put the food down on a table there, poured coffee into the cups he'd brought from the café, and he and Nick dug in.

"Heard anything from the doc?" Heath asked.

"Not yet," Nick said. "Heard Jarrod yell three or four times. Heath, I don't know. This is gonna be really rough for him to get over."

"It's gonna be rough for all of us, Nick," Heath said. "I know I'm never gonna forget how we found him, all tied up and torn up like that. I haven't seen anything like that since Carterson, and this was even worse."

Nick looked up at him. "Best we don't remember it, Heath. Mother and Audra are gonna take their cues from us. If we look like this has been hell on earth for Jarrod, they'll look at it that way, too, and it'll be tougher for him to get over it. Be tougher for all of us."

Heath nodded. "I know. But it was hell on earth for him. We're gonna have to work awful hard to help him find his way out of it."

They finished their sandwiches and were polishing off the coffee when Dr. Merar came out of the examining room. He looked exhausted and worried. "Well," he said, "he doesn't have any injuries below the waist that I can find, and I've cleaned and doctored all the other wounds. I'll need you boys to help me get him to the recovery room."

"What about infection?" Nick asked.

"He's got some," Dr. Merar said. "I've put a drawing salve on all those welts and tears and on his face. I've got that eye bandaged. It's looking pretty ugly."

Heath turned cold. "He's not gonna lose it, is he?"

Dr. Merar looked at them very seriously. "I don't know. If he has to lose it, he'll have to be taken to San Francisco. I can't do it and not cost him both eyes."

Nick and Heath looked at each other. Both eyes? He could lose both eyes? Dr. Merar was scaring them to death.

"But let's not worry about that unless we have to," the doctor said. "Help me get him to the recovery room, and then I'll fix the two of you up. You don't look too great yourselves."

"We're fine," Nick said as they followed the doctor into the examining room.

"Right," the doctor said dubiously, and then they were all beside Jarrod. He was cleaned up now, his chest and back bandaged, as were his eye and his wrists. He was wearing only clean undershorts that Dr. Merar kept in the office specifically for emergencies like this. The doctor leaned over and said softly, "Jarrod?"

Jarrod stirred, moaning.

Dr. Merar said, "We're going to move you over to the recovery room, Jarrod. Your brothers are going to help you up."

"All right," Jarrod said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Nick and Heath got him up and then, supporting him on either side, got him to the room next door. He was noticeably thinner and lighter, beginning to look gaunt under the beard. Since he was only in underwear now, there was no belt to grab onto, but they managed to get him moved, and soon he was in a soft bed.

Without opening his eye, Jarrod said, "Thanks."

Nick touched his shoulder, tears suddenly burning his eyes, especially his own one that was hurt. How could someone have done this to his brother? "Sleep now, Pappy. You're safe."

They pulled the sheet and blanket up over him. He was asleep before they made it out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Victoria and Audra came running in while Dr. Merar was tending to Nick and Heath in the examining room. Nick was on the table at the time, so Heath came out and waved the women in.

When they were in the examining room, Victoria looked from Nick to Heath and back again. Their faces were banged up good. Victoria began to look panicked.

"Nick and Heath are fine," Dr. Merar said quickly, seeing her reaction to looking at them. "Just some cuts and bruising, nothing major."

"Where's Jarrod?" Victoria asked.

"In the recovery room – "

Victoria turned to go before he finished his sentence. Heath took her arm and stopped her. "Best wait a minute, Mother."

Nick slipped down off the examining table. "He's beat up pretty bad, Mother, and he's sleeping."

"I want to see him," Victoria said and her voice said she would brook no interference.

Nick looked at Dr. Merar, who nodded. Nick and Heath then took Victoria and Audra over to the recovery room.

Jarrod was still asleep but seeing his face and eye bandaged up made Audra gasp. He looked so fragile and so frail, and with only his underwear beneath the blanket, he looked like he had lost so much weight after a week with no food and probably little water that Victoria thought she might be able to lift him by herself. She went close and took his hand. It didn't make him stir at all.

Behind them, the doctor said, "I gave him something to make him sleep, so he'll be out for a few more hours. He has a slight fever. I'll have to keep an eye on that, and I'll want to get some broth at least into him this evening. He's very undernourished and dehydrated."

"Is he going to lose his eye?" Audra asked.

"I don't know," the doctor said. "We'll worry about that later if we have to. For now, he just needs time and healing."

"I'll stay with him for a few minutes," Victoria said.

Dr. Merar said to Nick and Heath, "You two come back and let me finish with you."

Audra stayed with her mother while the men left. She got a chair for her mother, and Victoria sat down while Audra stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders. "He'll be all right, Mother," Audra said.

"I'm sure he will," Victoria said, "but his head and his heart are going to need a lot of healing, too."

"We'll look after him," Audra said. "He'll be up and around before you know it."

Victoria sighed and let a few tears fall, just to look at him. "We still have to find out why this happened to him."

"Nick and Heath will work on that until Jarrod can. They're probably already talking to the sheriff."

Victoria leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Then she sat back again, still holding his hand, and settled in, planning on staying by his side until the doctor chased her out.

Six Weeks Later

Jarrod came into the library, carrying an armload of files his secretary had brought out to him. His physical injuries had healed up very well, and he had not lost the injured eye. His vision was still blurry in that eye, but it was getting better all the time. His sore muscles had stopped bothering him as much. The welts on his back and chest had healed, but they did leave scars.

Scars that bothered him, but not due to vanity. They bothered him because every time he saw his chest, the scars reminded him of a woman who was still missing somewhere, a woman he was no closer to identifying, much less finding. His secretary had been bringing him old files for the past three weeks, and he spent hours every day pouring over them, looking for something, anything that would lead him to more understanding. But so far, it just wasn't there.

Victoria brought him coffee. "I saw you heading in here and figured you would want this."

Jarrod smiled. "You were right."

"Are you sure you're not straining that eye?" she said as she sat the tray down on the desk.

"I probably am, but it's in a good cause," Jarrod said. Then he saw his flip answer put worry in her eyes. He smiled. "Don't worry, I can see better every day, even if I am working harder than you would like."

"You came close to losing that eye, you know, and maybe both eyes." She choked on that.

Jarrod knew why. He had lost his vision before, but praise God, got it back. If he lost his eyes, there would never be any hope of getting it back. "Don't worry," Jarrod said, reassuring. "I am not overdoing. A pile twice this high would be overdoing, so you can see, I am being careful. I don't want to be blind again any more than you want me to be."

She leaned over and kissed his forehead. There was so much more she was worried about, but she had learned to keep it to herself.

He was still as edgy as she had ever seen him. That jovial smile would disappear in a flash, replaced by anger and fear, even at just the sound of a book falling onto the floor. Dr. Merar said to expect that, it would probably go away over time, but Victoria didn't like it – especially when the smile came back so fast that there was almost something sinister about it.

And there were the nightmares. She hadn't spoken to him about them, but when he woke up during the night crying out, she could hear him. She didn't go to him and neither did anyone else. She didn't know if they hadn't heard him or if, like her, they knew if they overloaded him with concern, it could be counterproductive. But he just wasn't Jarrod again yet. He was still somebody else.

Jarrod saw she was still uneasy, but he misconstrued why. "Don't worry, I'll take a break after an hour if I'm not through with these by then. I won't overdo."

Victoria smiled and nodded. "I'll leave you to your work."

As soon as she left, he started in on the first file. Like all the others he'd read over, he remembered it, remembered the people involved. In this case, there was no woman involved, so he put it aside and started in on the next one. There was a woman involved in that case, so Jarrod jotted down her name and address. He did that with every woman he came across in the files, and once a week – as much as he was able to muster so far – he went into town and sent wires to those women. So far, every one of them had wired him back. None was the missing woman he was looking for.

He followed the same procedure again this morning and by the time he'd finished with the files, he had a list of eleven women to send telegrams to, on top of the thirty he had picked out from other files earlier in the week. At lunch, he told his mother he would be going to town to send the telegrams.

"Are you planning to go armed?" Victoria asked.

"No, not yet," Jarrod said.

Victoria was pleased he seemed to be monitoring himself on that. At least he had some sense that he was still too nervous to trust himself with a sidearm. "Will you be home for dinner?"

"I believe I will but don't hold it past seven for me," Jarrod said. "I'll stop by the office and you never know what might be waiting there for me."

"Jarrod, do you really think you'll find the woman you're looking for in the files you're looking over?"

Jarrod frowned. "I don't know. I just have to try."

"You said the man who held you thought you had his wife."

Jarrod began to look annoyed. "I don't have her. That's been obvious all along."

"Does that have to mean that someone else has her?"

Jarrod's annoyance started to flame up in his eyes. "No, but it does mean I have to try to find her."

"But if she's run away of her own accord – "

"Mother, I am doing what I need to do." Jarrod's glare had turned to ice. His voice was strained, like he was trying to keep from sounding angry.

Victoria backed off. "Whatever you think you need to do, Jarrod."

His smile – that sinister smile that chilled her bones – came right back, too fast. "Well, now that that's settled, I'll be on my way to town," he said.

He got up and kissed her, then went out of the room. Victoria got herself quickly back together, then looked up to see him disappearing toward the front door. Certain he was gone, she finally breathed again. Time, she told herself. Time would do the healing. She just needed to give him time.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When Jarrod got to town, he carried the files he'd examined into his office and put them on his secretary's desk. She would know to refile them, and tomorrow she would pull more and bring them out to him. He looked for messages she might have left on his desk, but things were quiet and there were none. He took a deep breath, relieved that there were none. He wasn't ready to start any new cases yet.

He wasn't ready for a lot of things. He had one thing he needed to remain focused on.

He went to the telegraph office next and arranged for telegrams to go out to the women on the list he'd made up. By now, the telegraph operator knew what he wanted to say. All he had to do was accept another list from Jarrod. He also gave Jarrod the last list he had brought by and all the replies he'd received.

"Are you looking for some reply in particular, Mr. Barkley?" the operator asked.

"Yes," Jarrod said, putting the papers in his inner coat pocket. "The one that doesn't come."

Jarrod left the office and headed for the sheriff's office. He found the sheriff making a pot of coffee. Sheriff Madden looked over his shoulder at him. "Afternoon, Jarrod."

"Afternoon, Fred," Jarrod said. "I was in town and thought I'd see if you had any new posters."

Sheriff Madden shook his head. "Not a one since last week. Maybe crime is going out of business."

Jarrod chuckled. "Not a chance of that happening."

"Coffee is just about ready. Want some?"

"Yeah, maybe a cup," Jarrod said and went to look at the posters on the board again. He had already looked at this set the last time he was here. Nothing had changed. The man who held him and tortured him for a week was not on that wall.

Sheriff Madden brought two cups of coffee and set them on his desk. "Have a seat."

Jarrod came over, sat down, and picked up one of the cups. He sipped the hot liquid. "Have Nick and Heath looked at your wall lately?"

"Day after I put the new posters up," Sheriff Madden said. "I'm sorry. They didn't see him either."

Jarrod frowned and said, "There's something about not being able to bring that guy to justice that just grates on me."

Sheriff Madden believed Jarrod was being genuine when he said that. "It's good to hear you put it that way, but don't let it grate on you too much. The man already paid the highest price."

"Yeah," Jarrod said and looked at his coffee.

"I take it you haven't had any luck locating his wife?"

"No," Jarrod said. "None at all."

The sheriff heaved a sigh, looking closely at his old friend as Jarrod just stared into his coffee cup. "I know I don't need to say this to you of all people, but don't give up."

Jarrod looked up at him. "Oh, I won't. I never will. She's out there somewhere. Somebody has her, or she's running from a man she no longer has to run from. One way or another, I'll find her and give _her_ some peace at least."

Sheriff Madden wondered about how he'd put that, his last sentence in particular. Was he admitting out loud that peace was eluding him? If Jarrod was admitting that, it was something new. In all the weeks since Nick and Heath brought him home, he'd never admitted that he was still troubled, even though everyone knew he was.

"Maybe it might do you some good to back off for a day or two," the sheriff said. "Clear your head, give you a fresh perspective on things."

"Well, my mother would like it if I rested this eye," Jarrod said. "It's perfectly all right now, but she still worries."

"You know, that's what I miss most about my wife being gone. Having somebody be concerned about you every day was kind of comforting."

The sheriff had lost his wife not long after Jarrod had lost his. For a moment, two widowers looked at each other and understood each other. "Maybe that's why I really want to find this woman. Her husband didn't care about her at all, except as a possession, something to be owned. Somebody should care about _her._ "

Sheriff Madden nodded. He had known for years that Jarrod was that kind of man. Compassion mixed with a strong sense of justice was at his core. But he was a complicated man. He was also very angry. Sheriff Madden had seen his anger at work when it wasn't tempered by that compassion and sense of justice. In a way, he was glad Nick and Heath had killed the man who held and tortured him, because if they hadn't, maybe Jarrod would be after the man himself right now, and his anger could be murderous.

But the man was dead, and Jarrod was directing his anger toward finding and saving the man's wife, whatever her situation was. Maybe doing that was helping him heal from what had happened to him.

Jarrod finished his coffee and got up. "Well, I think I'll head back home. My mother feels better when I'm home for dinner. Mothers. I'll see you in a few days, Fred."

"So long, Jarrod," Sheriff Madden said as his friend went out the door, and he slowly finished his own cup of coffee.

XXXXXXX

Jarrod was working in alphabetical order reviewing his files. It was down in the Ps, in a seven month old file that he got his first itch that this might be the one. He hadn't thought about this woman since then, but as he read the file he could almost see her sitting there in front of his desk. She was a striking woman even though from her dress and the way she talked he could tell she was not wealthy or educated. Except for her beauty, she was quite an average person.

Her name was Cecilia Paine. Her husband was a man name Levi Paine, and she was asking about a divorce. Jarrod remembered being able to tell that she was not committed to actually getting a divorce, but she wanted to know what was involved, and as he remembered, she wanted to know what she would need to do to get protection from her husband. He was abusive, even though Jarrod couldn't remember the woman having any marks that showed that abuse. Cecilia didn't stay long, and at the end of the interview Jarrod was pretty sure he would not see her again. Jarrod pretty much forgot about her only a few days after she left.

Jarrod had found her address and telegraphed her. She was the one who had not sent a reply after two weeks had passed. She could be the one.

Now more than two months past his ordeal, Jarrod's vision had cleared and he was able to see as well as ever. All he really had to remind him about what had happened were the scars and the nightmares, and the nightmares at least were calming down. He was able to go into town more often now and his family was hoping he'd begin to see clients again, but he was hoping he had something else to do.

"Morning, Fred," he said to the sheriff as he came into the office.

"Morning, Jarrod," Fred Madden said. He was putting the last of the new wanted posters up on the board, and he pointed to them. "Brand new batch."

Jarrod went to the board and looked closely, but he was not surprised that he did not see the man who abducted him. He turned back toward the sheriff's desk as the sheriff asked, "Want some coffee?"

"No, thanks," Jarrod said, and as the sheriff sat down at this desk, Jarrod gave him a piece of paper. "This is Cecilia Paine, a woman who came to me a few months ago about a divorce but didn't follow through, at least not with me. I sent a telegram to her, but got no answer. Would you send one to the sheriff of this town – Preston, California – see if you can find out if she's still around, or if something fishy has happened to her? Her husband was Levi Paine, check on him, too?"

"All right," the sheriff said. "You think she might be the one you're looking for?"

"Maybe. Maybe she's just ignoring my wire, but maybe she is the one."

"I'll get on it today and maybe have something for you in a day or two."

"Thank you, Fred," Jarrod said and left.

He had driven a buggy into town and left the latest files he'd reviewed on the seat. He fetched them and took them to his office. He left them on his secretary's desk and fetched a new pile that was sitting on his desk. There were no messages from his secretary, and he was glad of it. Something deep inside him told him that Cecilia Paine was going to be taking up a lot of his time very soon.

He felt his mind beginning to focus on her. He was beginning to remember more what she looked like, how she acted, how she described her husband.

Jarrod went out to the filing cabinets in his secretary's office and pulled Cecilia Paine's file out again. He would take it home, and he intended to keep it and read it over and over until he found Cecilia Paine.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The nightmare came back in full force, only this time Jarrod knew, as he was dreaming, that it was just a dream, and it didn't scare him. In fact, he kept trying to go deeper into the dream, to get free and move past the man who was bullwhipping him, because if he could get past that man, he could get to Cecilia Paine. She was there, beyond him, moving farther away every second. In his dream Jarrod fought and pushed free and ran past the man torturing him. He ran after Cecilia Paine. He knew it was her. He remembered her long brown hair, he saw it blowing wild in the wind, her green eyes looking back through her hair as she ran away. In his dream Jarrod kept trying to reach her, but she kept running away.

And behind him, the man who had been torturing him was running after him and catching up.

Jarrod woke up with a start. He didn't think he had cried out – if he had, no one was coming to him to shake him out of it. But they never did, and he didn't need anyone to. The dream didn't scare him. It only made him more desperate to get to Cecilia Paine.

The next day, Sheriff Madden came out to the ranch, bringing the response he had gotten from the sheriff in Preston. He realized the moment he got it that Jarrod would want it right away.

Silas greeted him at the door and escorted him to the library, where Jarrod stood staring out the window. Silas said, "Mr. Barkley?"

Jarrod didn't respond.

"Mr. Barkley?" Silas tried again, louder.

This time Jarrod turned around. "Oh, sorry, Silas, I was a million miles away." It seemed to take him a moment to see the sheriff, but then he said, "Afternoon, Fred. You want some coffee?"

"No, I'm fine," the sheriff said, and Silas excused himself with a slight nod of his head.

Jarrod came over to the sheriff, who had stopped near the pool table. Jarrod saw the paper in his hand, and his heartbeat speeded up. "Is that from Preston?"

Sheriff Madden gave Jarrod the paper and said, "From the sheriff in Preston. Cecilia Paine disappeared three months ago, and Levi Paine disappeared right after that. That was only a short time before you were abducted."

Jarrod read the wire over twice. It didn't say any more than what the sheriff said, but it didn't need to, not to convince Jarrod that he had found the man who took him and the woman he'd been tortured over. The Paines had to be the people involved in this.

"Jarrod, let me talk to you as a good friend for a moment," Sheriff Madden said. "Preston is only about twenty miles from where your brothers found you and killed the man who abducted you. I've been there before. It's a nothing town and a rough one. Don't think about going up there alone to chase this down. Take Nick and Heath, or at least one of them with you."

Jarrod handed the telegram back to the sheriff. "I'm all right, Fred. I don't think I need anybody to look after me when I go up there."

"You may not think so, but believe me, you are not back to being the man you were. You're still carrying scars, and they're going to get in your way."

Jarrod smiled. "I appreciate the concern, Fred, but Nick and Heath are both busy with roundup. They're combining herds with Carl Wheeler's to take them all to the army near Modesto. They don't have the time to go anywhere with me, and I can't wait on this. Cecilia Paine may be in trouble. I have to find out."

"Your family is not going to want you to go alone."

Jarrod kept the smile, and he kept calm. "Leave the family to me. They're used to me taking off on business. That's what this is."

"Jarrod, it's more than that, and if you can't see that, then it's all the more reason you shouldn't go alone."

Jarrod clapped him on the arm, nodding. "Fred, I'll work it out with them. Come on. I'll walk you to the door."

XXXXXXX

Jarrod privately packed some extra clothing and personal items in a saddlebag in his room that afternoon and did not approach the subject of leaving until everyone had finished dinner. He knew Sheriff Madden was right, that his family was going to object when he said he was going alone, but he also knew he had to go alone.

He could keep telling himself that the nightmares didn't bother him anymore, but they did. He wanted them gone, just as any man who had been through what he'd been through would want them gone. But more than anything, he wanted answers. He wanted to know that Levi Paine was the man who'd abducted him. He wanted to know what had happened to Cecilia Paine, and he wanted to help her if he could. Answers, and helping that woman, were the only things that would make those nightmares disappear.

When everyone was finished eating, Jarrod folded his hands in front of him and said, "I need to tell you all something."

They looked up at him, waiting.

"Fred Madden came by. I think I know who it was who abducted me and I think I know why. A woman named Cecilia Paine came to me about a divorce a while back, but she never followed through. A couple weeks ago, I sent a wire to her, and when she didn't respond I had Fred send a wire to the sheriff in the town where she lived. Both she and her husband disappeared right before I was taken. I think I've found the right man and the right wife."

"What are you going to do about it?" Heath asked.

"They're from Preston. I'm going up there to check it out, to see if I can find out what happened to my client. If somebody has her, I'll work with the law to find her and get her free. If she's running, I'll work with the law to find her and let her know she doesn't have to run anymore."

Nick said, "You don't want anybody to go with you, do you?"

"No," Jarrod said. "You have roundup, and I can get help from the law when I need it. I'm leaving in the morning. I'll be all right."

No one looked very happy about it, and his mother stared at him for a long time, but Jarrod stared back. Victoria knew there were times her sons, being men, had to do things to either keep their sense of self-reliance or to get it back. There were things they had to do alone. She didn't like it one bit, but she knew Jarrod had to do it.

But she said, "You will wire us when you get to Preston, and you will wire us each day thereafter and tell us where you are going."

It wasn't a request.

Jarrod nodded. "I'll do that, unless I'm somewhere I can't do it, and then I'll get to you as soon as possible."

Nick said, "I don't like it, Jarrod. You're not all the way well yet."

"Since when did not being all the way well stop you, Nick?" Jarrod asked.

And Nick had to concede with a shrug and a nod.

"When will you start the drive, Nick?" Victoria asked.

Nick said, "Three days from now."

"And you will wire me when you get to Modesto." Again, it was not a request.

Nick nodded. "And in between if I can."

"Then it's settled," Jarrod said. "I'm leaving first thing in the morning, and with any luck, I'll be back within a week."

Victoria still stared hard at him, willing him to take someone with him, but he stared back and did not budge an inch.

In the morning, at breakfast, Victoria considered making another try to keep Jarrod from going alone, but she dismissed it when she discovered he had already eaten by the time she and the others got to the table.

"I want to get an early start," he said, and as he left the dining room he kissed her, smiling at her to be as reassuring as he could be. He looked at everyone entering the room and said, "See you all as soon as I can."

He walked out of the dining room and put his gunbelt on in the hall. He already had Ciego saddling his horse and strapping on his rifle, saddlebags and bedroll, so he was ready to go.

But as he turned to leave, he found Audra beside him. He kissed her. "Don't worry, Honey, I'll be fine."

"I think you probably will," Audra said, "but I know you, Big Brother. You won't stop looking for this woman until you find her, or find out what happened to her, even if it takes you the rest of the summer. I want to ask you not to do that, Jarrod. I want you to come home. I want you to promise you won't take forever doing it."

Jarrod sighed. "Audra, I can't promise something like that. It means too much to me to find this woman. I'm probably the only one who cares enough to look. Can you imagine what it must be like when you're lost and there's no one who cares enough to look for you?"

Audra didn't have to think about it long. "Empty." She nodded. "But we need to know _you're_ not lost, and you know what I mean by that. We can't help you get over what happened if you're off alone somewhere. We need you here."

Jarrod smiled. "I will wire you every day that I can. That I can promise."

Audra hesitated. She had noticed that sinister smile, too, and there it was again. "If you're not back before Nick and Heath are, they'll come looking for you. You know that."

"All right," Jarrod finally conceded. "I'll do my best to be back before they are."

Jarrod kissed her, but to Audra, the kiss was too much like the smile. She wasn't sure she believed he'd be back before Nick and Heath were, but he turned and left before she could think of anything else to say.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Preston was a small town about two day's ride from Stockton and about twenty miles from the cabin where Jarrod had been held prisoner. Jarrod knew that, and he found himself compelled to detour slightly to see that cabin again. He wasn't sure why – he was pretty sure it wouldn't hold any evidence of who the man was who had held him. He was mildly afraid it would hold only dreadful memories, but he went there anyway.

Or at least he tried to. Before he even left the main road, he realized he did not know how to get to the cabin. He hadn't been conscious or aware enough of what was happening, either when he was taken there or when Nick and Heath took him out. A whole week out of his life, and he had no idea where he had been.

Frustrated, he continued on to Preston. It was very small, very quiet. It really didn't look as rough as Sheriff Madden seemed to think. Only one saloon, no bank, no doctor, a barbershop where the barber was standing at the door, leaning on the frame, watching him. Jarrod noticed the telegraph office was in the same place as the barbershop, and the sheriff's office was across the street.

Jarrod went to see the sheriff first. The jail was just as small and quiet – one cell, and just the sheriff there sitting at a desk with his feet up. The man was about Jarrod's age, wore a heavy moustache and had his gun strapped on. He looked up and put his feet down when Jarrod came in.

"Can I help you, Mister?" the sheriff asked.

"I hope so," Jarrod said, closing the door. "My name is Jarrod Barkley. I believe you've traded telegrams with Sheriff Madden in Stockton about something I'm working on."

"Oh, yeah, the Paines," the sheriff said. "Not sure how I can help you, though. Like I told your sheriff, Cecilia Paine disappeared about three months ago and Levi Paine right after. I suspect she ran away and he went after her."

"That's been my thinking, too," Jarrod said. "I'm a lawyer in Stockton. A while back Cecilia came to see me about getting a divorce, but she didn't follow through so I lost track of her. Just after Levi Paine disappeared, I was taken prisoner and held by a man who thought I knew where his wife was. I believe that man was Levi Paine."

"Where were you held?"

"A cabin, about twenty miles from here. I take it you didn't investigate either disappearance."

The sheriff shook his head. "No need. No evidence of any foul play. Levi came in, said he didn't know where his wife was. She wasn't around here, so he figured she'd run off. Then he took off, and neither one of them has ever come back."

"Did you check their house?"

"Yep. It's not much, real small, but everything looked fine. No blood anywhere, nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody's bothered it since they left. We're not sure what to do with it, but we've left it alone in case they turn up."

"May I have a look at it?"

The sheriff looked doubtful.

"With you there, too, of course. I just want to look around, see some pictures maybe, to be sure these are the people I'm looking for."

The sheriff shrugged. "Let's go."

The sheriff took him outside and, on foot, down the street to a spot where there were a couple small houses at the edge of town. They went up onto the porch and the sheriff just opened the door. It was not locked.

"You leave it open?" Jarrod asked as he went in behind the sheriff.

The sheriff said, "We don't have much crime around here, Mr. Barkley, and nobody around had a key. I keep an eye on things. Nobody's bothered anything."

The sheriff stayed by the open front door while Jarrod looked around the tiny living room and kitchen. There was a fireplace with a mantle where Jarrod spotted some framed pictures. He went there first, and got the answer to the question he needed most.

There was a photo of a couple, in wedding dress. The man had the face of the man Jarrod remembered, the man with the bullwhip and the fist. It was him. And the woman was the Cecilia Paine who had come to his office. He had found the right people.

Jarrod picked up the picture. "I need to take this with me."

The sheriff started to object, but then he said, "Sure, why not?"

Jarrod took the frame apart and took the photo out. He slipped it inside his inner jacket pocket and came back to the sheriff at the door. "I can tell you right now, Levi Paine won't be coming back. He held me prisoner for a week, thinking I knew where his wife was. My brothers pulled me out of that mess, but they killed him in the process."

The sheriff looked alarmed. "Now, that I may have to look into."

"Wire Sheriff Madden. He'll get statements and send them to you, but one thing I'll swear to you right now – Levi Paine held me captive for a week, beat me and bullwhipped me and I was half dead when my brothers got to me. They had to fight him to get to me. He beat them up pretty good, too. I'll be happy to give you a statement right now."

The sheriff nodded. "All right. Let's go take care of that."

Jarrod stepped outside with the man, saying, "I need to wire my family, let them know where I am. I'll stop by the telegraph office and do that first if you don't mind. And then later, if you don't mind, I'd like to spend some time here at this house, see if I can find anything that might lead me to Cecilia."

"She's the one you're worried about? Seems like she just ran off."

Jarrod said, "Levi seemed to think I had her hidden somewhere. There's a chance she is being held somewhere against her will. I'd like to look around in the house, see if I might find something to tell me if she did run or she's been taken. You can certainly be with me if you like."

"I would like. If somebody's taken that woman, it's well past time I knew about it."

Jarrod nodded. He thought the sheriff should have been asking questions a long time ago, but the past was past. The best thing they could do now was to check things out as they were.

Jarrod stopped at the telegraph office and wired his family that he had arrived, that Levi Paine was the man who had held him and that Nick and Heath could expect to have Sheriff Madden ask for statements about what happened between them and Levi Paine. Then the sheriff wired Sheriff Madden that he wanted those statements.

Then Jarrod went to the sheriff's office and gave him a statement. The sheriff looked at him more than once as he explained what Levi Paine had done to him. Jarrod put in every detail he could remember, and noted how often his memory escaped him because he was unconscious. The sheriff took it all down, and Jarrod signed it.

"Do you have a café or someplace I can get something to eat around here?" Jarrod asked as he signed.

"Saloon, that's it," the sheriff said.

"No hotel? Boarding house?"

"'Fraid not. You can sleep in a cell if you like."

Jarrod smiled. "I prefer to stay out of jail, Sheriff. I'll camp out outside of town."

"Suit yourself."

"I'll get a drink and a bite to eat at the saloon. Then, may we head back to the Paine house? It might take me an hour or more looking around there."

"Just come by and get me when you're ready."

Jarrod nodded and headed out the door.

The sheriff read Jarrod's statement over again and shook his head. No wonder this man was after Cecilia Paine. If Levi had done all this to him, it was possible that he'd done something terrible to Cecilia. And he, the sheriff, had totally misjudged it all.

XXXXXX

Sheriff Madden in Stockton got the wire pretty quickly, and he picked up the one for the Barkleys, too. He didn't read that one, but he took it straight out to the ranch. Nick and Heath were not there, but Victoria and Audra were. Victoria anxiously opened the wire and read it – and breathed easier.

"I don't suppose Nick and Heath are available to come in and give me statements anytime soon," Sheriff Madden said.

Victoria shook her head. "I don't know. I know they're on roundup, but whether they can come in tomorrow, I don't know. I'll send them in if they can go."

"Jarrod's gotten to Preston safe, at least," Audra said, looking over her mother's shoulder.

"It looks like this Levi Paine is the man who took him and worked him over," the sheriff said.

"That's something at least," Victoria said.

"I know you're worried," the sheriff said. "I tried to talk Jarrod into taking Nick or Heath with him, but he wouldn't have it. I think he had to do this on his own."

Victoria nodded. "Jarrod's always been the kind of man who had to face his demons down alone. I don't know why I thought this might be different."

"I've got a good excuse to send Nick and Heath up to Preston in person if you want, Victoria."

She shook her head. "No. Not yet. We have to let him work this out himself, or at least try to. He's promised to wire us every day if he can. We need to see if this will work out."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Later in the afternoon, Jarrod and the sheriff at Preston went back to the Paine home and began to look around more carefully. A serious look at the grounds did not show anything unusual. Jarrod was half afraid there might be Cecilia's undiscovered grave, but there was no sign of anything like that. Inside, he and the sheriff went through drawers and kitchen cabinets and every other place that might have hidden anything, but the most notable thing was that while there were still articles of Cecilia's clothing, there wasn't very much, and there was nothing at all of Levi's.

"Looks like Cecilia left in a hurry and Levi gave more thought to it," the sheriff said.

Jarrod grunted an agreement.

There was no money at all in the house, no weapons or ammunition at all. Levi had probably taken it with him.

After a search that took an hour or so, Jarrod stopped to look at the living room from the front door, just to see if there were someplace they forgot to look, but it didn't look that way.

The sheriff said, "Seems to me Cecilia left, and Levi went after her, taking whatever he could to last being gone a while."

"Well, if that's what happened – and I think you're right – he never found Cecilia," Jarrod said.

"And you want to find her, but where in the world you're gonna look, I don't know," the sheriff said.

"Did she have any friends in town? Any family anywhere?"

"None that I know of. This is the closest thing you can get to a ghost town without being one. Cecilia didn't have many ways of making friends."

"Where did they come from in the first place? How did they end up here?"

"Levi had a brother, Nathan. Nathan settled here working as blacksmith, before the town started to run down. Levi came to live and work with him and then Levi went off for a while, came back with Cecilia. Nathan died. That was about two years ago."

"When did the town fall on hard times?" Jarrod asked.

"Just after that. Only real business here was a freight line that carried for some of the ranches in the area, but a better freight line opened up near Carson, about ten miles northwest."

It was a story Jarrod had heard in several towns – one business keeping things going, then it disappears and so does the town. "If you don't mind, Sheriff, I'm gonna just wander around town and ask questions. I'll let you know what I find out."

"All right with me," the sheriff said.

Jarrod wandered the town after that, talking to whoever would talk to him, but he was getting nowhere. No one would own up to knowing anything about Cecilia Paine. One or two people admitted to knowing Levi, but they claimed they didn't know him well enough to say much about him.

Jarrod had no luck at all until he finally tracked down the man who ran the livery. It took several tries to find him there, but finally Jarrod cornered him mucking out stalls. Jarrod introduced himself and explained why he was there. The man looked suspiciously at him, but when Jarrod asked about Cecilia, he actually said, "Yeah, I remember her. Beautiful girl."

"Do you by any chance have any idea where she's gone?" Jarrod asked.

"No," the man said. "I just sold her a horse, and off she went."

Jarrod straightened. It was the only lead he'd found all day. "You sold her a horse?"

"Yeah, about three months ago. I didn't realize at the time that she was running away."

"You're sure she wasn't being forced or anything?"

"Didn't seem that way. She was in a big hurry, though, so I don't really know. If I'd known she was trying to run away from Levi, I'd have tried to stop her."

"What made you think she was running away from Levi?"

"Levi. He came by maybe a day later, madder than hell. I thought he was gonna haul off and deck me when I told him I sold her a horse. He took his horse out later that same day and then he was gone, too."

"Did you tell the sheriff any of this?"

The man shrugged. "Sheriff never asked."

Jarrod sighed. The lack of interest people in this town – the sheriff included – had in each other was almost startling. A woman leaves and her husband leaves after her, and nobody is even concerned.

"It wasn't my business," the man said when he noticed Jarrod was looking exasperated.

"Did you see which direction she went?" Jarrod asked.

"Southwest," the man said. "I told Levi the same thing."

Stockton was toward the southwest. Jarrod figured if Levi had found out Cecilia had come to Stockton to see him about a divorce, Levi was probably deciding she was coming to see him again. And that's why Levi thought Jarrod knew where Cecilia was.

But Cecilia had never come to Stockton, at least not to Jarrod's knowledge, nor had Levi, before he grabbed Jarrod. Jarrod didn't remember how Levi had gotten him, and no one had told him how. He simply had no memory of being taken, and he had no memory of Levi before that cabin.

"You all right there, Mister?" the man asked.

Jarrod realized he must have begun to look sick or something. "I'm fine," he said. "Is there anything you haven't told me that might let me know where Cecilia went?"

The man shrugged. "Find Levi and ask him."

"Already found Levi," Jarrod said, "and he won't be answering any questions anymore."

"Dead?"

Jarrod nodded.

"Well, then," the man said. "I guess we got a big mystery on our hands, don't we?"

Jarrod just nodded and left, and now he had run out of people to ask. He found his way back over to the sheriff's office, and he told the sheriff what the man at the livery had told him. The sheriff heaved a sigh. "Too bad he didn't tell me that before, but then I never asked. I figure if a man is having problems with his missus, it's none of my business."

Jarrod said, "I'm going to head out now. If you need me for anything else, wire me in Stockton."

"If you find her, I'd appreciate knowing," the sheriff said. "I need to decide what to do about the house and the things in it."

Jarrod nodded and went out the door to where his horse waited for him. As he mounted up, he wondered how anybody could be more concerned with a person's things than with a person. He also wondered exactly how he was going to head out from here. There was a main road heading southwest – the same one he'd come here on – but there were side roads to many other towns between here and Stockton. He could see a sort of map in his head, and he tried to put something together.

Where would a woman alone and on the run from an abusive husband go? And why didn't she come straight to Stockton and to the lawyer she had come to before?

Or had she? While Levi had him, had she come to see him?

Jarrod dismounted and went back into the sheriff's office. "Sheriff, tell me again – what were the exact dates that Cecilia and Levi disappeared?"

"Mr. Barkley, I didn't take note of the exact dates," the sheriff said. "I can only tell you that Levi came in saying his wife was gone about the first week in April, and he was gone less than a week later."

As Jarrod figured it, he had been abducted about mid-April. Surely, if Cecilia were coming to see him, she'd have gotten there before Levi got to him. She had to have stopped somewhere else – or been taken somewhere else.

"Thanks," Jarrod said, and he mounted up and left town, heading southwest.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Jarrod did not make it to another town before he had to camp for the night. He was grateful for the quiet and the solitude, after that horrible trip to Preston. He couldn't believe how uninterested the people there were in what had happened to Cecilia, one of their own. Even the sheriff seemed a lot more interested in what to do with her house and her things than what happened to her.

He remembered asking Audra how she would have felt if no one anywhere cared enough to look for her if she were lost. He remembered that he had a family that looked for him and found him, because they cared enough when he was lost. Dear God in heaven, what could have happened to him if they hadn't come for him. He could have been tortured for days longer, and then probably left for dead.

He was so grateful for his family he suddenly felt a bit guilty for leaving without bringing Nick or Heath along. Maybe he was being thoughtless, running off alone to try to deal with this. If anything were to happen to him and they got wind of it, Nick and Heath would come looking for him again, the second time in three months. Wasn't it unfair of him to ask them to do that again?

Well, now it didn't matter. He was out here, on his own, and at least Levi Paine wasn't alive to come after him again. The only real danger out here would be if someone else _had_ taken Cecilia and that person found out that Jarrod was looking for her. But it didn't sound like someone had taken her. It sounded like she had just run away on her own. It sounded like he was just going to have to find her and tell her she didn't need to run anymore.

He put all his thoughts away and settled in for the night – and woke up crying out and sweating at some point in the middle of the night. Why? He thought he was beyond that. Why was it happening now?

He caught his breath and remembered waking up like that while he and his brothers were camped out, after Nick and Heath found him and while they were bringing him home. Maybe that was the reason for the nightmare now. Maybe it was just the feel of the saddle at his back that sent him back to that time in his dreams.

He sighed and turned on his left side, the part of him that didn't hurt when Nick and Heath were bringing him home. He fell asleep again and woke up in the morning, pretty well rested. He was ready to move on within an hour.

XXXXXXX

"Mother!"

 _Again, with the yelling,_ Victoria thought as she came into the foyer from the kitchen. "Nick – "

"I'm sorry," Nick said. "Got a wire from Jarrod."

"Where is he?" Victoria asked as she took the telegram from her son.

"Elk," Nick said. "He's moving back in this direction."

Victoria looked at the telegram. "He says Cecilia Paine headed southwest when she left Preston, but it looks like he's moving north again. He says he plans to go toward Sacramento."

"He's probably trying to look everywhere he can before he gets here," Nick said.

Victoria put the telegram in her pocket. "Have you and Heath given Fred Madden those statements the sheriff in Preston wanted?"

"Did that today," Nick said. "Though I don't know what difference it's going to make, with Paine dead."

"Hopefully the sheriff up there is just documenting things and he's not looking into whether you and Heath should be charged."

"Don't worry about that, Mother. After he reads what happened to Heath and me when we tried to take him, and what kind of shape we found Jarrod in, he won't pursue anything. Our statements will just end up in a file somewhere."

"I expect you're right. How is the roundup going? Will you be ready to leave on time?"

"First thing in the morning. Heath and I are going to spend the night with the herd, so don't expect us back again for at least two weeks. I'll wire you when we get to Modesto."

Nick gave her mother a kiss, and she returned it, but she still looked awfully unhappy, to Nick's eye.

"Hey," Nick said, "don't worry about any of your sons. We're all okay. And if Jarrod's not back before we are, we'll consider going after him, all right?"

"Well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it," Victoria said. "You and Heath just be careful on that drive. I don't want any broken legs or knocks in the brain to have to deal with."

Nick headed out the door. "Don't worry about that. We're too good at this to be a problem."

Victoria smiled, but it faded. She just hoped all her sons would come home healthy, and soon.

Audra came in and saw her mother just standing there, holding the telegram and looking very thoughtful. "Is that from Jarrod?" Audra asked.

"Yes," Victoria said. "He's kind of heading back this way, but looking for this Cecilia Paine along the way, so there's no telling when he'll get home."

"I hope he finds her," Audra said. "If he doesn't, it's going to grate on him for a long time."

"Yes, I know," Victoria said. "So I suppose we'd better hope he finds her now, however long it takes, so we can all put those demons to rest."

XXXXXXX

Ten days later, Jarrod had hit several small towns and a couple large ones and not found Cecilia Paine anywhere. He had shown her photo to hundreds of people and described her long brown hair and green eyes, figuring people would remember a woman who looked like that. He even detoured to Sacramento and talked to his Pinkerton contact there, asking him to do some looking in Sacramento, San Francisco and wherever else they might find a lead taking them. True to his word, he wired his family once a day to let them know where he was and how things were going. It always turned out to me the same message – _Nothing yet._

By this time, he had neglected to shave for three days and didn't care much. Audra was right that not finding Cecilia Paine was going to grate on him; she just didn't pin down how soon it would happen. Even Jarrod was surprised about how fixated he was becoming, to the point he didn't shave, to the point that he didn't camp very early, to the point that he wasn't eating right.

To the point that the nightmares were coming more frequently and more vividly.

The tenth night out from Preston, he was seriously beginning to think he was in too much trouble himself to continue this search for long. He was within twenty miles of Stockton. He could stop searching tomorrow and head home, and maybe he would be better off.

But what of Cecilia? That thought kept him moving on.

There was a small town he would go to in the morning, a place called Miner, a place he'd only passed through before. He rode into Miner at about ten-thirty in the morning. It was as tiny as Preston was. The only activity seemed to be around the saloon, a little alarming at that early hour. Jarrod went straight there, and he saw pretty quickly why there were so many men gathered there.

She was as beautiful as he remembered her, that long brown hair flowing down her back, those green eyes sparkling even when her soul did not seem to be sparkling as well. Jarrod went in and found a place at the bar, and then he turned to watch her, and to be sure she saw him.

And she did within a few minutes. Jarrod knew she recognized him. She almost looked panicked for a moment, and she looked like she wanted to get away. Jarrod moved toward her and blocked her path as she tried to make for the stairway to the second floor. He took her arm, but not tightly. "Cecilia, I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Go away, leave me alone," she said and tried to get away from him.

"I have to talk to you. You need to know that Levi is dead."

She stopped, looking startled. "Dead? When? How?"

"Is there someplace we can talk?"

She looked all around. Jarrod followed her gaze, looking for whoever she was looking for. "No, not here. Maybe after I get off tonight."

"You're working all day?"

"No choice. Let me go now or he'll get suspicious."

"Who?"

"Just let me get back to work."

She pushed past him, and he let her go, but at least now he had part of his answer. Cecilia was alive.

But what was the rest of it? There was a man here somewhere she was afraid of. Who? Jarrod looked around, looking for someone who might be looking at her angrily, or looking at him angrily. But there were so many men in this place, it was almost disturbing. She could be held trapped by any one or more of them.

Jarrod couldn't spot anyone who might have his thumb on Cecilia. What he didn't realize was that one man in particular had spotted him, and was looking very unhappy about the way he had talked to Cecilia.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jarrod left the saloon and found the telegraph office, where he sent a wire to his family that he had found Cecilia Paine here in this ramshackle town called Miner and that he would be here for at least a couple days until he could talk to her. He decided to wait to wire the sheriff in Preston until he had talked to Cecilia.

He then found the sheriff's office and went there. As in Preston, the sheriff there was without anyone in his jail and looked pretty unoccupied. "Morning, Sheriff," Jarrod said. "I'm Jarrod Barkley."

"I know who you are," the sheriff said. "Seen your picture in the Stockton paper. What brings you to Miner, Mr. Barkley?"

His tone was not exactly friendly, but not exactly unfriendly either. Jarrod decided to be as casual as he could be. He smiled, but it was that sinister smile that carried a threat. "I've been looking for someone who came to me for legal help a little while back. I found her in the saloon across the street."

"Tildie?" the sheriff asked. He caught the edge to the smile Jarrod was giving him and straightened.

"I'm not sure. I know her as Cecilia Paine. Brown hair, green eyes?"

The sheriff said, "That's Tildie. Very popular with the boys around here, but why she's not going by her real name, I don't know."

"I might be able to help with that. She's from Preston. I'm told by the sheriff there she left home suddenly about three months ago. Her husband went after her just after that, and about then he abducted me and held me for a week, trying to find out where she was."

"And you didn't know," the sheriff said.

"And I didn't know until right now," Jarrod confirmed. "Did she come to town alone or with someone?"

"Came with the fella who owns the saloon – man named Doulin. Didn't look like she was being forced into it, though."

"That was almost three months ago?"

"That's right."

"I want to try to talk to Cecilia, just to be sure she's all right. I took about a week of being beaten and tortured by her husband. I think I've earned the right to a short conversation with her."

"I expect maybe you have earned it, but she's gonna have to want to talk to you. I'm not going to force her into it."

"She said to see her after she got off work, but I got the distinct impression that there was someone in the room who didn't want her to talk to me or anyone else."

"That would be Doulin, I guess. Tildie's real popular, pulls the boys right in there. If Doulin thought you might be taking her away, he wouldn't like it."

"And if he tried to stop me from talking to her? Would you do anything to stop him?"

The sheriff eyed him, hard. "Depends. Doulin's a big man in this town, and this is a little town."

Jarrod was beginning to be irritated. The smile faded. The threat remained. "Are you saying you'd back Doulin up?"

"I'm saying I might not have any choice."

"It's not my intention to force her to leave Doulin, if she doesn't want to go, but this woman has been abused by a husband who tried to keep her when she wanted to go and nobody's given a tinker's damn about it. Somebody has to care about this woman."

"And that's you."

"I've been looking for her for a long time."

"Nobody else has been."

Now Jarrod was about to split open with rage. "Which is exactly my point."

The sheriff could see the fire coming in Jarrod's eyes. "Listen to me, Mr. Barkley. This isn't Stockton. You don't carry any more weight than anybody else in this town."

"And not as much as Doulin."

The sheriff stood up. "Keeping up with that attitude is gonna get you spending the night in my jail instead of talking with Tildie. I suggest you go take a walk and calm down, and then see if she'll talk to you at the end of her day. And if she won't, I suggest you leave town at your earliest convenience."

Jarrod was livid, but the more the sheriff tried to intimidate him, the more stubborn he got. "I'll be spending the night, Sheriff, if you have a hotel."

"No hotel," the sheriff said. "Boarding house to the right after you leave here, end of town. Don't spend more than one night, Mr. Barkley."

Jarrod really had to fight his anger. He was going to talk to Cecilia Paine one way or another, with or without the sheriff's help, and if she wanted out of this hick town, he was going to help her get away. But he didn't need to tell the sheriff anything about any of that.

Jarrod turned and left the office. He could feel the sheriff's gaze on his back as he walked away from both the jail and the saloon.

He found the boarding house without much trouble and spoke to a Mrs. Malloy, who offered him the pick of any room in the place. He chose the room on the first floor. It was small, but it would do. Jarrod tied his horse up behind the house, unsaddled it and left his saddle on the back porch. After carrying his saddlebags, rifle and bedroll to his room, he went back to his horse and brushed him good, calming himself as well as his horse.

When he came back inside, Mrs. Malloy offered him a glass of lemonade in the kitchen, and he accepted it gratefully. "You know, Mrs. Malloy, you're about the friendliest face I've seen in this town."

"Then you must be here for some unpopular reason," she said. "Why did you come here?"

"To talk to Cecilia Paine."

"Who?"

"Sorry. Tildie."

"Ohhhhh – " Mrs. Malloy said and sighed. "Well, I was wondering what her name really was. What do you want to talk to her about?"

"Believe it or not, to see what she needs," Jarrod said. "I'm a lawyer in Stockton."

"Oh, I know that."

"Seems like everybody does. She came to see me a few months ago. To make a long story short, she needs to know that her husband is dead. I want to make sure she knows she has choices now, and I want to help her make them."

"Choices," Mrs. Malloy said sarcastically. "Good luck with that, Mr. Barkley. Al Doulin has his claws in her. He's made sure she's got no choices."

"Did he bring her here?"

"A few months ago. She's been trapped under his thumb ever since. If you intend to try to get her loose – well, I hope your family knows where you are so they can come collect the body."

Jarrod was unfazed. "My family knows where I am, but they won't need to collect my body."

"You'd better understand, Mr. Barkley. Al Doulin is a big man in these parts, and a dangerous one, and all you are is an outsider big shot from Stockton. Al has friends here. You don't have any."

Jarrod smiled the most genuine smile he'd mustered in ages. "I have you, don't I?"

Mrs. Malloy laughed, but then turned serious. "I'm not gonna be enough, Mr. Barkley. Be very careful what you do."

Jarrod nodded. "I've been in this position before, Mrs. Malloy. I will be careful."

"You want some lunch?" she asked.

"Sound's good," Jarrod said, and was grateful he seemed to have found his first friend on this long, nasty trip.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jarrod was careful to lay low for the rest of the day, taking his evening meal with Mrs. Malloy before heading out into the town once it turned dark. He was careful to be sure that no one was following him and found a quiet little corner to watch the saloon, waiting for it to close.

He wondered if Cecilia was going to be leaving alone or if Al Doulin would be "escorting" her. He hadn't quite figured out what he was going to do if Doulin was with her. He really wasn't in the mood to fight the man physically. He didn't want to fight anyone. He just wanted to talk to Cecilia.

Gradually, the saloon began to empty, until at around two in the morning, the lights began to dim, and Cecilia came out. She was alone. Jarrod breathed a sigh of relief, quietly crossed the street, and met her near an alley at the end of the block the saloon was on.

"Cecilia – " he said quietly.

She stopped, catching her breath. It was too dark to see who he was.

"It's Jarrod Barkley," he said, stepping closer. "All I want is a word with you."

"Al Doulin might see you," she said.

"I won't take long. You need to know your husband is dead."

She was silent for several seconds, then said, "So you said. I can't say I'm all that surprised. I thought someone would get him sooner or later. Is that all you wanted?"

"Not exactly. It was my intention to let you know you have choices to make now."

She laughed. "Choices? Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not," Jarrod said, not entirely surprised at her reaction. "I don't know why you left your husband. I don't know if you were just running or if you were planning to go with this Doulin fellow to get away from Levi, but you don't have to run from him anymore. You can go if you want or stay here if you want. I just wanted you to know you have the choice."

"Mr. Barkley, you need to just keep moving along. You've delivered your message, now just leave town."

"Do you want to stay here with Doulin?"

"What I want is none of your business. And it doesn't matter anyway."

Jarrod felt his anger rising up again. "Don't you care about yourself?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you're worth it."

"Am I? Mr. Barkley, I don't know what you want from me, but I'm not giving anything more away. You best just go."

Jarrod took hold of her arm, just tight enough to keep her from leaving. "Cecilia, you've got to believe I'm trying to help you."

" _Help_ me?" she laughed, a bitter, ugly laugh. "Like Levi wanted to help me? Like Al Doulin in there wants to help me? Mr. Barkley, you have no idea what I'm like. I'm beautiful, I know it, I turn every head that goes by, but you don't know what that's like. All I've ever been to anybody is that piece of merchandise that really sells, or that trophy to put on somebody's mantle, and right now, to Al Doulin, I'm both. Did I want to get into this? No. But he talked to me like you're talking to me now, and I believed him. Just like I believed in Levi, I believed in Al, and they're both as much garbage as you are. Leave me be."

Jarrod kept hold of her. "And I know if I say I'm your only chance, you've heard that before, too, but you have to understand something. Levi grabbed me and kept me in some cabin out in the middle of nowhere and beat on me and tortured me for a week. My brothers killed him to save me, and that was more than two months ago. Ever since the day I started feeling like a human being again, I've thought about one thing – if he could do that to me, what did he do to you? Were you on the run from him, or did somebody else grab you and torture you like he tortured me? I searched until I found you, and I'm not leaving here until you know what you're worth. I'm not leaving until you know somebody thought you were worth enough to look for you just to be sure you were all right and knew you had choices again, nothing else."

His eyes lost their fire halfway through his speech, but that was what seemed to get through to her. She could see those blue eyes radiating out of him in the dark, until they eased off. She relaxed in his grip, and he let her go. "I'm sorry for what Levi did to you," she said, more quietly, "but if Al Doulin sees you talking to me, he's liable to do worse. Let me go. I'll think about what you said."

She walked away then, and Jarrod watched her dark form turn a corner and disappear.

And someone immediately hit him over the back of the head with an axe handle. The blow knocked him into the alley, where he fell on his face in the dirt. Before he knew it, he was being kicked repeatedly. His head was whirling and splitting apart with pain, and still someone kicked him.

And then left him alone. Two forms stood over him in the dark. Jarrod tried to move, but couldn't.

"Leave Tildie be," someone said, and the two forms moved away.

Jarrod finally pushed himself up on all fours, his ribs and his head killing him, but somehow he managed to stumble all the way to the boarding house and through the front door. He fell right into a chair just inside and next to the stairs.

"Mr. Barkley!" Mrs. Malloy's voice came through the fog to him.

She was in her robe and slippers, and Jarrod realized he had awakened her. He saw her alarmed face looking down at him, and he tried to smile.

"What happened?" she asked. "You let me get you to your room."

Jarrod was glad he had taken the downstairs room. Mrs. Malloy tried to support him, but she was small and he really had to support himself until he collapsed into his bed. Mrs. Malloy pulled his boots off.

"Mr. Barkley, we don't have a doctor in this town!" Mrs. Malloy said.

"Not a problem," Jarrod said. "Just get me some fresh water and a cloth, would you please? I can doctor myself."

"I already have both for you. You just stay put and let me get that cloth to your head."

She lifted his head and got a look at the knot on the back of it before she fetched the cloth. A moment later, she lifted him again and then eased him back onto the damp cloth.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Your ribs are hurt too?" she asked.

"I'll be fine in the morning," Jarrod said.

"If you have a concussion, I can't let you go to sleep," she said.

"I don't think they hit me that hard," Jarrod said. "You go on, get yourself to bed. I'll be all right."

"All right, but if you're dead in the morning, I'll never forgive you."

Jarrod chuckled as she left the room, and he had the distinct impression that she would be looking in on him more than once during the night. He really didn't think he had a concussion, but he did everything he could to stay awake, at least for a while. Trying to think about how to help Cecilia, how he was going to get to talk to her in the morning – because he was going to talk to her in the morning - and what he was going to say, was enough to keep him wide awake for quite a while.

And so did the next horrible thought that came into his addled brain – was this Al Doulin the kind of man who would beat her up just because she had talked to him?


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Come morning, Jarrod's ribs were killing him but his headache was a bit better. He was certain now he had no concussion, and he was happy to see after he'd taken care of his morning necessities and gone into the kitchen, that Mrs. Malloy was glad he hadn't died during the night.

"I looked in on you once or twice," she said.

"I know," Jarrod said, sitting down at the kitchen table. "I saw you. I didn't fall asleep until about an hour ago. I don't think you need to worry I have a concussion, but maybe you ought to start locking your door. Any old wreck of a man can walk in."

Mrs. Malloy chuckled as she put coffee in front of him. "Just what are you going to do now, Mr. Barkley?"

"Have one more conversation with Cecilia, and we'll either both be leaving today or I'll leave alone. I know when to quit."

"I hope you're right."

"How much do I owe you, Mrs. Malloy?"

"Nothing more than you paid me when you moved in," she said.

Jarrod gave her several bills anyway. "If Cecilia decides she does want to get away, please use these to help her. I hope I haven't put you in any jeopardy because you've put me up."

"Not likely. Nothing much moves the sheriff, but if somebody came after me, he'd be after them. He's my brother."

Jarrod was surprised.

"We don't see eye to eye on most things, but he does look out for me when push comes to shove."

Jarrod thought of Nick. "I've got a brother like that myself."

Mrs. Malloy served him some pretty good eggs and ham, and then Jarrod took his things out to his horse and saddled it up. He came back inside then, went straight up to Mrs. Malloy and kissed her on the cheek.

"Thank you, dear lady," he said. "I won't forget you soon."

"You just look out for yourself, Mr. Barkley," she said. "And get Tildie out of this town if you can. She deserves better than this."

"Amen to that," Jarrod said.

After another kiss to her cheek, Jarrod went back to his horse and led it down the street, out in the open and as obvious as he could get. He saw all the eyes looking at him, and he made sure they were watching as he hitched his horse out in front of the sheriff's office. He went in.

The sheriff was there pouring his own coffee. "I see you're still here," was all the sheriff said.

"For a little while longer," Jarrod said. "You have a wonderful sister, Sheriff. She took good care of me last night after I took that beating across the street."

"I heard about that this morning. You want to press charges?"

"I never saw who did it. What I do want is another chance to talk to Cecilia and the chance to get her safely out of town and away from here if she wants to go."

"You don't ask much."

"Will you see I get that?"

"I was being sarcastic."

"I know. Will you see I get the chance to talk to her and get her out of town if she wants to go?"

The sheriff heaved a big sigh. "I can see that you get to talk to her safely, but as for taking her out of here – I don't even have a deputy, Mr. Barkley. Al Doulin has a few men who will jump in to help him, and none of the boys in town will be happy to let Tildie go."

"So, she's your prisoner, too."

The sheriff glared at him. "You're looking to make me go back on my word to see you get to talk to her, aren't you?"

"I'm looking to see a woman who's been nothing but abused most of her life gets a chance to have a life. Will you help me?"

"And who will help me stay alive after you've gone?"

"I expect there are people in this town who have a lot of regard for your sister, and probably for you, too. Between the two of you, I expect you can come to some kind of standoff with Al Doulin."

The sheriff chuckled. "You're something. First you want me to risk my life, and now you want my sister to risk hers."

"I'll stand up to Al Doulin alone if I have to. You just get me that safe conversation with Cecilia, and then you can step aside."

"You'll get her killed too, if she says she wants to leave."

"I expect she knows the risks, and I'll make sure she knows she won't be alone. I'll die for her if I have to, Sheriff. Believe me when I say that."

The sheriff shook his head. "That knock in the head I hear you got last night has made you crazy, Barkley."

"I've never been more sane, Sheriff."

The sheriff took a deep breath again and looked at the clock on the wall of his office. "Tildie will be heading for the saloon in about ten minutes. I'll walk you out into the street so you can talk to her there. You want some coffee in the meantime?"

Jarrod shook his head. "I'll just watch for her."

Without another word, Jarrod went to the window and looked out at the street. Sighing again, the sheriff joined him. And in ten minutes, they saw Cecilia coming down the street toward the saloon.

Jarrod headed out the door, and the sheriff was right behind him. Jarrod was a taller man and made it across the street in fewer strides to cut Cecilia off before she arrived at the saloon. She saw him coming, and saw the sheriff behind him. The sheriff stayed in the middle of the street, looking around, as Jarrod stopped beside Cecilia.

"Just one more time, and I'll leave town alone if you ask me to," Jarrod said. "But I'd like you to come with me. I want to see you get the life you deserve, Cecilia, the life you came to me all those months ago so you could have."

"Mr. Barkley, you know they're watching," Cecilia said. "If I leave with you, we won't get five miles away from here. They will kill you."

"I'm still your best chance, Cecilia."

"You're taking your life in your hands just talking to me."

Jarrod saw the man at the saloon door staring at him, a man about his own age but with graying hair and one mean look on his face. Jarrod knew instinctively it was Al Doulin. He gave the mean look back. "I know."

Cecilia looked all around. Jarrod could see it in her eyes. She wanted out of this town. She wanted to go with him. But she also saw Doulin at the saloon door and finally shook her head. "I can't. They'd kill you. I can't live with that. I can live with Al Doulin, but I can't live with you being killed because of me."

Jarrod sighed, and he nodded. "I understand. But if you decide you want to go, see Mrs. Malloy at the boarding house. She'll help you. And know that I would give up my life to get you out of here, Cecilia. Know that you're worth that, and if I can ever help you get away – far, far away – I hope you know to come to me in Stockton if you need help. I will get you away."

Cecilia just left him then, and he watched her go past Doulin into the saloon.

Jarrod looked at all the faces looking at him and at Al Doulin still staring at him. He stared back, then walked back across the street. He passed the sheriff without a word and never saw the hard look the sheriff gave to Al Doulin. Jarrod simply mounted his horse and rode out of town.

XXXXXXX

Jarrod arrived home later that day, wearily gave his horse to Ciego to unsaddle, and carried his saddlebags into the house. Unlike Nick, he was never inclined to holler as soon as he came in, and he didn't now. He just put his saddlebags down on the floor at the foot of the stairs, then hung his hat and gunbelt up on the pegs in the hall.

His mother and sister heard him come in. They had just finished a late lunch in the dining room.

"Jarrod!" Victoria cried, full of relief, and fell into his arms.

Jarrod held her and kissed her cheek, then did the same for his sister.

"We didn't expect you back this soon," Audra said.

"Well, things wrapped up for me quicker than I thought," Jarrod said.

"Is Cecilia Paine with you?" Victoria asked.

"No," Jarrod said.

"Oh," Victoria said, disappointed.

"Is there any food left for lunch?" Jarrod asked. "I could really stand to eat."

"Clean up a bit and we'll meet you in the dining room," Victoria said.

Jarrod nodded, took his saddlebags upstairs, and thirty minutes later came down after washing up, shaving and changing clothes. He went into the dining room and as soon as he was there, Silas brought him a plateful of food.

"Oh, thank you, Silas, you don't know how much I need this," Jarrod said and sat down to eat.

Silas poured him some coffee. "I got some apple pie in the kitchen, too, Mr. Barkley, if you want some."

"I know I will, thank you," Jarrod said, and Silas left.

Victoria and Audra sat down with him. "What happened?" Victoria asked. "Did you talk with Mrs. Paine?"

"I talked with her, yes," Jarrod said, "but she's a virtual prisoner of another man now, and she wouldn't leave. She was afraid it would get me killed."

"Oh," Victoria said. "Oh, Jarrod, I'm so sorry."

"As am I," Jarrod said, holding off eating any further, putting his fork down on the plate. He looked at Audra as he said, "She told me that being a beautiful woman was more difficult than I ever imagined. She said she was always some man's piece of merchandise or trophy to put on the mantle, and right now, to this worthless man in Miner, she's both. She didn't feel she could get away without putting my life in jeopardy, and I couldn't argue very much with her on that. I got beaten up last night just for talking to her."

"Are you hurt bad?" Audra asked.

"No, not too bad," Jarrod said. "Just knocked around and kicked around a bit."

"And disappointed that you couldn't help her," Victoria said.

Jarrod nodded and picked his fork up again, but before he began to eat, he said, "I was ready to get killed to get her out. I really was."

"I'm glad you didn't," Victoria said. "Do you think you exorcised any of your demons?"

Jarrod looked up at her as if he was surprised she knew that was part of his reason for going. But he should have known. He nodded. "Some."

"What do you think will happen to her now?" Audra asked.

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "I really don't know. I just hope somehow - "

He couldn't finish the sentence, but he didn't have to. They knew what he hoped for Cecilia Paine.


	12. Chapter 12

Epilogue

"Mother?!"

Victoria closed her eyes and sighed. "Nick, I'm in the living room, for heaven's sake."

"Oh," Nick said, and he and Heath came in, fresh from Modesto only two days after Jarrod came home and happy from a sale to the army. Both he and Heath leaned over and kissed Victoria as she went on with her sewing.

"Everything went well, I take it," Victoria said.

"Went perfect," Heath said.

"Where's Jarrod? Is he back?" Nick asked.

"He is," Jarrod said as he came in from the library. He shook hands with both his brothers.

"Did you find the woman you were looking for?" Heath asked.

Jarrod nodded. "Cecilia Paine, Levi Paine's wife. I found her, but it doesn't have a happy ending. She's trapped in another hopeless situation."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Nick said.

"At least you tried, Jarrod," Heath said.

Jarrod nodded. "You made a good sale?"

"An excellent sale," Nick said. "Even Carl Wheeler is happy, and you know how hard he is to please."

"Where's Audra?" Heath asked.

"She went to town to visit the orphans and get the mail," Victoria said. "She should be back soon. And you two should clean up before you leave the trail all over my house."

Nick and Heath headed for the stairs, but they stopped when Audra came in the front door.

"Nick! Heath!" she cried.

They gave her a kiss without a hug, not wanting to get her dusty and dirty.

"Anything good in the mail?" Heath asked.

"I don't know," Audra said. "There was no mail, but there was a telegram, for Jarrod."

Jarrod came over, and Audra handed him the telegram. Victoria got up and joined them as Jarrod opened it and read it. And he said, "Oh, my God. It's from Cecilia Paine."

"What does she say?" Victoria asked.

The surprise in Jarrod's face turned to a real, genuine smile. "She's sending it from Sacramento before she catches a train east. She's going home to Kansas City. She says she has family there who want her to come back. I can't believe it. She got away."

Victoria reached for him, and he took her into his arms.

"She got away!" he cried, and he literally did cry.

Victoria wiped the tears that fell down his face as Heath slapped him easily on the back.

"This calls for a celebration," Nick said.

"Not until you clean up and change clothes," Victoria said.

"You do smell like cattle," Audra said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Nick said. "Congratulations, Pappy. You won your case without having to go to court."

Nick and Heath headed upstairs as Jarrod walked with his mother and sister into the living room. He was still looking at the telegram as he sat down on the settee and his mother sat beside him.

"I think this makes me happier than any case I ever won," Jarrod said.

"You worked hard to save that woman," Victoria said. "I'm so happy you did."

Jarrod wondered how Cecilia managed to get away. He knew Mrs. Malloy had given her the money and that had something to do with it, but he could never know for sure where she got the courage, and he didn't need to know. He was just happy it had happened.

And he was happy all day, until he woke up in the middle of the night with another nightmare. He was back in that cabin, being beaten and whipped and torn apart all over again. Covered with sweat and terrified, he sat up on the edge of his bed until the nightmare began to pass. It was so dark in his room he couldn't see anything, but he could hear his breath coming in frightened bursts. He didn't understand. The nightmares should have stopped. Why was there another one?

And then he realized something. The face of Levi Paine in his dream was gone. It had been replaced by the face of Al Doulin.

He sat on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes.

The End


End file.
